British energy landscape shifted a month ago, old media waking up now…

In the UK, gargantuan (as in wow!#$) amounts of cheap energy were discovered a month ago, yet it seemingly hasn’t changed the political landscape. (Or, then again, maybe it did? I gather no one in the UK government seems to be admitting it, but from afar, it looks like a lot of clunker UK policies have not-coincidentally got the boot in the last month.) Overtly, it’s been the gift no one wanted to open… but possibly a few in power are well aware of what’s under wraps and it is influencing policies?

Back in August 2011, the experts at the The British Geological Survey team thought the country only had 150bn cubic meters of shale gas. Then on Sept 22 a group called Cuadrilla announced that they’d found the odd 5,660 bn cubic metres under Lancashire.

Right about then, a sea-change ought to have come over ministers and corporate leaders in the UK. Here was a get out of jail free card, with lots of cash-cow potential, not to mention 50+ years of gas for the whole nation. It ought to have been time for large parties, champers, and the dumping of the competing energy sources. Instead a month later, news articles are talking about the fact that no one is talking about it. (Meanwhile I hear people in a modern nation are dying of cold because they can’t afford electricity or gas. It’s not like this is important…)

The worldwide, big picture: the 1700′s were fueled by wood, the 1800′s were the age of coal, the 1900′s were all about oil, and it looks like the 2000′s will be powered by shale gas. Yes it’s that big.

Phillip Johnson at the Telegraph explains that everyone is cold, electricity is a rip off, shale gas could rescue everything but no one seems to want to talk about it…

The cost of gas and electricity has become jaw-droppingly expensive. For millions of people on low or declining incomes, especially the elderly, heating makes up an excessively large chunk of their outgoings. As politicians fall over each other to woo the so-called “squeezed middle”, this has also become a key Westminster battleground.

Indeed in Mr Huhne’s opinion, British householders are enjoying “relatively good electricity and gas prices”. Well, that’s a relief. Most of us thought we were being royally ripped off, not least by the tax on energy to pay for useless windmills so that Mr Huhne can parade his green credentials around Europe.

Later, I listened to a BBC radio programme on shale gas and that sinking feeling about our energy future suddenly lifted. There is enough gas in the Lancashire site alone – some 200 trillion cubic feet – to meet the UK’s fuel needs for decades.

But there seems to be a conspiracy to keep this from the public. The greens are determined to kill off shale gas because it is not a renewable source. The big energy companies don’t want to know and the Government has so far been lukewarm about the prospect.

This is not an energy source that needs billions in research and subsidies just to make it “competitive”.

The impact of shale gas in America is already huge. Gas prices have decoupled from oil prices and are half what they are in Europe. Chemical companies, which use gas as a feedstock, are rushing back from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Mexico. Cities are converting their bus fleets to gas. Coal projects are being shelved; nuclear ones abandoned.

The Sunday Times is getting the gist of things:

For Britain, the implications are profound. The arrival of commercial shale gas on world markets could make nuclear power and offshore wind look very expensive. Dieter Helm, professor of energy policy at Oxford University, believes a rapid switch to electricity generation by gas, which has about half the emissions of coal, could save the taxpayer billions, cut household bills and bring about faster falls in CO2 emissions.

“Our inquiry found no evidence to support the main concern, that UK water supplies would be put at risk,” said Tim Yeo, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee. Greens were aghast.

Matt Ridley: Gas against wind

Which would you rather have in the view from your house? A thing about the size of a domestic garage, or eight towers twice the height of Nelson’s column with blades noisily thrumming the air. The energy they can produce over ten years is similar: eight wind turbines of 2.5-megawatts (working at roughly 25% capacity) roughly equal the output of an average Pennsylvania shale gas well (converted to electricity at 50% efficiency) in its first ten years.

Difficult choice? Let’s make it easier. The gas well can be hidden in a hollow, behind a hedge. The eight wind turbines must be on top of hills, because that is where the wind blows, visible for up to 40 miles. And they require the construction of new pylons marching to the towns; the gas well is connected by an underground pipe.

Unpersuaded? Wind turbines slice thousands of birds of prey in half every year, including white-tailed eagles in Norway, golden eagles in California, wedge-tailed eagles in Tasmania. There’s a video on Youtube of one winging a griffon vulture in Crete. According to a study in Pennsylvania, a wind farm with eight turbines would kill about a 200 bats a year. The pressure wave from the passing blade just implodes the little creatures’ lungs. You and I can go to jail for harming bats or eagles; wind companies are immune.

Still can’t make up your mind? The wind farm requires eight tonnes of an element called neodymium, which is produced only in Inner Mongolia, by boiling ores in acid leaving lakes of radioactive tailings so toxic no creature goes near them.

Not convinced? The gas well requires no subsidy…. read the full article at Matts site.

161 comments to British energy landscape shifted a month ago, old media waking up now…

You must understand that the present UK government is like the last controlled by the Mafia. The Murdoch’s children are ardent greenies and influence the empty, not too bright Cameron through his wife whose father is a wind subsidy farmer. Then we have the EU connected Clegg and Huhne who are basically a 5th column operating for a foreign power.

There is a lot of pressure being applied to the organised criminals in the UK and their connections in the EU. Lord Oxburgh who ran the CRU enquiry, which was also managed by a Murdoch employee, Neil Wallis, is chairman of Falck Renewables, the subsidiary of Falck Gruppe of Milan which has been investigated by anti-Mafia police over its Calabrian wind farms. Over there the subsidy is for build not operate, so they don’t work.

So, here’s the modus operandus: people in government are agents of organised crime who want to control carbon trading and the windmills which don’t save CO2 but are a stealth tax on the population via control of the electricity grid.

The head of the Mafia has to be cut off. This is why NewsCorp is under attack in the UK and the US, also other corporations.

The other lesson is that the average academic climate scientist is selected for being dumb so they act as cover. UEA is a Marxist institution stuffed with poor scientists acting as cover for the far right who are very clever.

You must never forget the EU when looking at what happens in the UK – EU policies and directives defines/limits how the UK frames 70-80 percent of it’s legislation and the government is commited by treaty to at least impose the existing EU renewables policies.

Any discussion and decision will have to take place behind closed doors with the political elite from other member states. So why, unless forced would they discuss it publically when they would have to then admit that they are powerless.

Or in other words, the UK Government isn’t going to trumpet it until its Masters have sewn up & secured all the rights for themselves. Meanwhile the energy cartels are telling us there ‘s no way the energy prices can come down, as they roll in our cash.
UK Government manages its people.

… EU policies and directives defines/limits how the UK frames 70-80 percent of it’s legislation … so why, unless forced would they [the UK Government] discuss it publically (sic) when they would have to then admit that they are powerless.

Yep, that was to be my point, exactly.

Governments in Britain (and throughout Europe) do not govern. They merely decide on the best way to implement the latest EU directives within the UK culture.

The model is not new. It was the way the Roman Empire managed its vassal states. The EU Commission, and the EU Parliament have visions of a new European Empire, and a pax Europa.

Shale gas has never been considered by Brussels, so they have no position on it, and until they do, the existing directives will stay in place, and Britain will continue to build windmills, and buy electricity produced by French nuclear plants.

Now imagine the world as a whole governed by an EU like central Global Government. The EU is just a sample of how disastrous this would be for humanity. Why so few (excepting those here present) seem to be able to see it is a mystery. By extension, the key IMO to breaking down the AGW edifice is the complete destruction of the EU as an entity, freeing up sovereign states to act once again in the best interests of its citizens in energy and economic security.

The Greek, Spanish, and Italian sovereign debts cannot be overcome purely by austerity measures. The citizenry would revolt. So the other countries have to bail them out, which is actually paid for by increased taxes on their citizenry. A point will come where they also will have had enough.

From this side of the world, it looks an awful lot like a slow motion train wreck, and once the first wagon has left the track, the whole train will follow.

Democracy works by holding the power holders accountable, but who is the EU accountable to? A world government is the EU writ large, so more powerful and worse in every way. If you can’t get rid of it, you should never have it.

Not only is the path to evil paved with good intentions, it’s walled, roofed and fully furnished.

We’ve had three successive brutal Winters and this one is shaping up to be the fourth. The elderly and poor are the ones who’re really going to suffer yet again. Mr. Huhne doesn’t see this of course; he’s a millionaire. It must be nice for him to be green and virtuous but then again, I suppose he can afford it …

“Pathological science in this case, and not for the first time, has a real human cost and it’s not scientific reputations but the lives of our most vulnerable, needlessly lost in a slow and brutal fashion to the cold of Winter and there’s not much dignity to it either.”

I anticipate that as more people wake up to the real green agenda through people becoming informed about wind and solar, that the backlash against them will allow CSG to garner support.

The greens will go on about water pollution (of which they may have a point, but so does drilling) but then they will claim (as they have allready)that fracking causes earthquakes and tsunamis (which is complete and utter bullsh1t).

The greens and their feeble minded lackeys will oppose it because there is so much CSG around that they can’t control it. The people will just tell these commies to just go shutthef–kup.

I have heard that australia is the saudi arabia of CSG, btw. I think that whilst exploration continues there will be much more found elsewhere in the world.

Recently, a very, very sensitive seismometer detected an earth tremor, which, even by the standards of the ones we get in Britain, was tiny. Put it this way: nobody else noticed it. It was said to have an epicentre near Blackpool, which is where the shale gas prospecting has been going on.

Cue Dr A N Obliging-Geologist to claim that the “earthquake” was almost certainly the result of the search for evil shale gas. This was alarmism at its most blatant and it is the line which the greens are clearly adopting, in their desperation to pursue their anti-human, anti-wildlife, anti-landscape, fascistic agenda.

Malthus, as I understand it (having never read any of his writings) described what he feared would happen. More than thirty years ago, in the UK, the green party were already proclaiming that a population of thirty million was ideal. At that time, the UK’s population was still a little below sixty million, but the aspiration was, nevertheless, clearly for a drastic and rapid reduction of the population by nearly fifty per cent. I can think of a few ideologues who have dreamt of reducing the human population on an industrial scale. As far as I know, Malthus wasn’t one of them.

The political dimension is the biggest issue behind this, as has already been suggested. Just as opponents of AGW theories get much less space and almost no time in the MSM (thanks again, BBC) so shale gas has hardly been reported. The new, big find in NW England should have been in huge headlines in the press, but almost nothing’s been seen. Apparently the BBC did make a mention low in the order of news items, but in negative terms of course – too many problems with contaminating natural water sources and the frakking itself causes earthquakes, don’t y’know.
This really is almost criminal in terms of governmental dereliction of duty, but as has been proved again today, we’ve got a dictator as PM (and you Aussies thought you were the only ones) and one can have any opinion one likes, providing it’s exactly the same as Cameron’s.

What the hell is it about the English-speaking world that is so prone to guilt (about its economic success?), prone to confidence tricks like CAGW? The most educated people on earth having their whole political class signing up to join the irrational, comical, self-harming Gaia religion? Only in America the incumbent ruling class, which loves CAGW theory like a smitten teenager (How a lunatic political activitist like James Hansen continues to draw a large government paycheck as the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies is beyond belief), is having trouble getting the US to commit economic suicide. The Canadians went to the brink before they withdrew, even though the elite continues the Gaia worship, and Australia’s majority are livid that they have been tricked into economic hari-kiri that must now be rolled back. The rest of the world (outside of the communist relics of Europe)look on in wonder as the dumb white trash wrestles with self-destruction.

Yes china has some gravely serious bubbles (banking, ghost cities etc), however, they have five important things that we in the west lack, imho:

1) cheap and abundant labour
2) A saving culture (The chinese who can save save a good proportion of their income)
3) A Government that is anything but naive or stupid
4) An effective manufacturing sector
5) No sense of entitlement

I don’t like the idea much either, but I have grave doubts as to whether the wests leaders can even count without the use of fingers let alone make the right decisions to restre capitalism.

If western civilisation is on its own on this one, we’re royally screwed as far as I can tell.

If china can stimulate internal demand, producing countries will survive ok. The free loaders are and will continue to burn.

Morning Jo,
Well done!! … again!!
The British Government seems to be a very similar ‘special case’ to that of Australia. That is; a coalition of not-like-minded people with only two (related) things in common … The end justifies the means & and the end of course is getting and keeping power!!
The incredible irony is that both here and in Britain, all the governing parliamentarians seem to be ignorant of a very basic Judeo-Christian principle!!…
“PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL!!”
I’ve e-mailed every single politician in Australia (some on multiple occasions) with well-researched and up-to-date info. on this topic, and they all seem either too stubborn or too stupid to at least consider that the climate has changed on climate change since Copenhagen.
We all know both governments need to do some major policy changes in the near future … the only question is … how many more months until they desist from this self-delusion???
Regards, reformed warmist (Logan)

Scott, CSG does not gasify water. Coal seams, or shale beds, have a large amount of methane gas trapped in them. This is what typically causes explosions in undergraound mining. The process of extraction can sometimes use hydraulic fracturing,usually referred to as frakking, of the coal seams, or shale beds, to release the gas. This is usually done by pumping down water under high pressure which creates large numbers of cracks in the coal seam that allows the gas to escape and into the where the bore has been dug and then to the surface. One of the concerns people have is with the chemicals that are used in the Hydraulic fracturing fluid and the possibility of them contaminating the underground water supply. I am unsure of the composition of these chemicals or the probability of contamination but I know that this process has been used in the oil and gas industry for decades and that there about 17,000 such wells in New York State alone. There is, to my knowledge, no recorded significant water contamination issues there as yet. This is about the extent of my knowledge on this but somebody else my be able to add to it or point out my errors?

I have watched that movie. I have also done a bit of independent research on it and it appears to have about as much veracity as An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. Here is some information for you to puruse. If you care to research you will find more info debunking the gaslands scare. I find it amazing that after all of the hit jobs and scaremongering that the environmental fanatics have done over the years, the biggest so far being the CAGW scare, that there are still gullible people who fall for the next one.

Don’t get me wrong, all extractive industries have environmental issues. In all cases these can be controlled to keep the environmental damage to insignificant levels. The extraction of gas from coal seams and shale is no different. The greenies were relatively happy with gas a few years ago. The discovery of what appears to oceans of gas in coal and shale gas deposits has got them all in a tizzy so they have to start the next big scare campaign. These people are extremists and the sooner the majority of people realise this and run them out of the country the better.

Fracing (no “K”) is 99% water and sand. The rest of the chemicals are mainly used to keep the sand in suspension…..think seaweed extracts that are also found in many foods.
There have been no proven cases of fracing polluting water tables. Any polluting issues are from either the casing or mud pits having problems.

Well said Pat. I’ve posted on the IIGCC several times before and have always said “follow the money”. This is just one of several financial organisations round the world which have heavily committed investor funds into taxpayer subsidised renewables but just their $20trillion pot of gold available to push the CAGW scam far overwhelms any alleged “evil big oil and coal” financial sceptic support (and like most others, I’m still waiting for my cheque)!

Hi cohenite,
C’mon, let’s be accurate here. CSG is produced from coal seams typically very shallow. Shale gas is produced from shale formations anywhere from 1000′ – 10000′ (give or take another couple of thousand feet). Yes, it’s all methane.
(so if the gas is the same but the differences in location and methods of production are different…………are they really identical????????????????)

Seriously?? a thumbs down? What in my post rates a thumbs down?
Last I knew a seam of coal and a layer of shale were not identical.
But then maybe the geologic world has changed since I graduated university. (/sarc)

Me too Wendy; I mean I’m agreeing with you in respect of the geology differences between CSG and Shale gas [and natural gas] but my point was the gases are all methane primarily [although some proportions of ethane, propane and butane are typically present].

no worries cohenite.
From the point of exploration/exploitation they are different. I work as part of a team drilling for shale gas/unconventional gas in the Woodford area in the US. I’d like to keep things as accurate as possible to avoid misunderstandings by the general public. It’s bad enough that there is so much disinformation out there with regards to the oil and gas exploration industry.
cheers.

Yes Wendy it was probably a long time ago and even geology moves on as new progress is made. Only climate science is settled.

Why are coal seams shallow and shale deep? Do you mean economically recoverable coal? Coal seams exploited for gas are those not economically mineable because of depth, danger, displacement, or thinness. Coal seam gas and shale gas are peas from the same pod- not necessarily identical, even somewhat varied, but only different to the afficionado.

One of the main reasons coal seam gas is shallow is due to the way the gas is held in the coal. The majority of the gas is actually adsorbed onto the coal micropore surfaces and held there by hydrostatic pressure. The coal has to be de-watered ie reduce the pressure to allow the gas to be released. Dewatering below 800-1000m gets technically difficult and expensive.

24 Oct: BBC: Mark Kinver: Public supports geo-engineering ideas, study suggests
The internet survey was commissioned by researchers from North America.
The findings appear in the Environmental Research Letters journal…http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15399832

Guardian at least allows questions about Harvard’s David Keith:

24 Oct: Guardian: Hanna Gersmann: Public supports geoengineering research, survey finds
First international survey on the perception of geoengineering finds 72% of respondents approve of research
The British, American and Canadian public is largely in favour of research into engineering the planet’s climate to combat global warming, according to a study published on Monday. But critics said the paper was “not exactly disinterested science” because one of the authors is the founder and president of a geoengineering company…
But Jim Thomas from the Ottawa-based technology watch ETC Group, that campaigns against geoengineering, said: “This commissioned survey by a commercial company is not exactly disinterested science – it’s more like a marketing exercise by a high profile geoengineering advocate and his students.”
Thomas said that Keith (Prof David Keith of Harvard University) was “consistently on the record as a supporter of real world geoengineering experiments”. He added: “Keith has designed ‘self levitating’ nanoparticles to be released in the upper atmosphere and managed a multi-million dollar private fund from Bill Gates from which he distributed monies to technicians developing geoengineering hardware to be used by private companies in experiments.”
Keith is also the founder and president of Carbon Engineering, a geoengineering company with 10 employees funded with around $6m by Gates and tar sands oil magnate Murray Edwards…
He said that ETC Group was “attacking the messenger, not the message”.
“We are happy to make all the survey materials publicly available. If the survey is wrong then ETC should work with a survey firm or an academic to produce a survey that contradicts these results. Our survey was reviewed by Nick Pidgeon, a leading expert on studying public reception,” he said.
Ashley Mercer, co-author of the study at the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy at the University of Calgary, said: “I can assure you the funding sources did not bias this research or its design. The goal was to simply assess current understanding and provide baseline data on emerging attitudes.”…http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/oct/24/geoengineering-survey-public-support?newsfeed=true

11 June 2010: Guardian: David Adam: Confidence in climate science remains strong, poll shows
Survey shows 71% of Britons are concerned about climate, despite hacked emails, failure at Copenhagen and cold weather
“By no means has there been a collapse in confidence in climate science,” said Professor Nick Pidgeon, who led the study…
The results come as a similar survey in the US shows that public concern about global warming is on the rise. The research, from experts at Yale and George Mason universities, showed that belief among the US public that global warming is happening has risen 4% since January, to 61%. Those who accept it is caused by human activity rose 3% to 50%. And the number of US citizens who said that the issue is personally important to them rose 5%, to 63%…http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/11/confidence-climate-science-poll

and the Guardian doesn’t follow up who did provide the funds for the study:

Public understanding of solar radiation management
This work was supported by the Center for Climate and Energy
Decision Making (SES-0949710), through a cooperative
agreement between the National Science Foundation and
Carnegie Mellon University and the Fund for Innovative
Climate and Energy Research.http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044006/pdf/1748-9326_6_4_044006.pdf

To the extent that the CoA can own, buy, and sell goods and services, yes, but that has nothing to do with the system convenience of being given a commercial entity ID number.

I have also registered an Australian Business Number for myself.
Does that make me an evil multinational NWO corporation hellbent on impoverishing future generations?
If so, please tell me where I can pick up my first pay cheque!

“Registration” comes from Latin “rex, regis” etc. meaning regal. So think about what occurs to whatever you ‘register’ – you hand legal title over to the Crown. When you register anything with the public,it releases legal title to the government corporation and leaves you with only equitable title – the right to use, not own, and for that use you will pay a ‘use’ tax which is every tax, be it income, sin, sales, property, etc. as opposed to lawful taxes – excise and impost. So that it doesn’t appear that the government now owns the property which you have registered they put it in a name which so much resembles your own that you won’t suspect it, however, the NAME is owned by the government. If you choose rather to record your legal title to your property with the public, you maintain your status as Title Owner. This is one of the most important things you can ever learn for the sake of your commercial affairs.

The best example of the effects of registration is the birth certificate. A bankrupt entity – city, state/province, country – cannot operate in commerce. So how do they manage? Since USA/CA have been bankrupt for decades, having no substance such as gold and silver to back it, the only asset it has are men and women and our labour. We are the collateral for the interest on the loan of the World Bank. Each of us is registered, via the application for a birth certificate. The Treasury issues a bond on the birth certificate and the bond is sold at a securities exchange and bought by the FRB/BoC, which then uses it as collateral to issue bank notes. The bond is held in trust for the Feds at the Depository Trust Corporation. We are the surety on said bonds. Our labour/energy is then payable at some future date. Hence we become the ‘transmitting utility’ for the transmission of energy. The USG/CAG, in order to provide necessary goods and services, created a commercial bond (promissory note), by pledging the property, labour, life and body of its citizens, as payment for the debt (bankruptcy). This commercial bond made chattel (property) out of us all. We became nothing more than ‘human resources’ and collateral for the debt. This was without our knowledge and/or our consent, via the filing (registration) of our birth certificates. When mums apply for a birth certificate, the application is registered. The legal title of her baby is then transferred from mum to the State. Mum is left with equitable title of her baby whom she can use for a fee – a ‘use tax’ – and since the property does not belong to her, she has to treat it in the manner which the owner wants.

Colonel Edward Mandell House is attributed with giving a very detailed outline of the plans to be implemented to enslave the American people. He stated, in a private meeting with Woodrow Wilson (President 1913 – 1921), Very soon, every American will be required to register their biological property (that’s you and your children) in a national system designed to keep track of the people and that will operate under the ancient system of pledging. By such methodology, we can compel people to submit to our agenda, which will affect our security as a charge back for our fiat paper currency. Every American will be forced to register or suffer being able to work and earn a living. They will be our chattels (property) and we will hold the security interest over them forever, by operation of the law merchant under the scheme of secured transactions. Americans, by unknowingly or unwittingly delivering the bills of lading (Birth Certificate) to us will be rendered bankrupt and insolvent, secured by their pledges. They will be stripped of their rights and given a commercial value designed to make us a profit and they will be none the wiser, for not one man in a million could ever figure our plans and, if by accident one or two should figure it out, we have in our arsenal plausible deniability. After all, this is the only logical way to fund government, by floating liens and debts to the registrants in the form of benefits and privileges. This will inevitably reap us huge profits beyond our wildest expectations and leave every American a contributor to this fraud, which we will call “Social Insurance.” Without realizing it, every American will unknowingly be our servant, however begrudgingly. The people will become helpless and without any hope for their redemption and we will employ the high office (presidency) of our dummy corporation (USA) to foment this plot against America. – Colonel Edward Mandell House.

I thought there was a rule/regulation on this site that posters had to put context into their posts. ie they should not just paste a heap of text (ie spam the site) or put up links without explanation. How does the above post sit?

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There is a a couple of advantages in using Methane as a fuel source for power plants, and that’s what gives gas fired power its attraction for that purpose.

As I have mentioned so many times, for large scale electrical power generation, the only real option here in Australia is coal fired power. This is robust, and the design is that a plant of this nature can just lumber on at maxrevs, where it is at its optimum for virtually everything, eg, running it up and down consumes more coal, hence emitting more CO2 than running it consistently at maxrevs.

With the recent advances in generator technology especially, it has now got to the point where gas fired generation can in fact produce large scale power. The driving turbine, which is similar to a jet aircraft engine (and for extreme simplification I have used that as a comparison, because they are indeed quite different) has also seen advances as well.

Earlier, gas fired power was perfect for Peaking Power, eg, those times when large amounts of power are required ‘on tap’ in a short period of time, for specific times, eg 5 to 9AM, and 4PM till around Midnight. Gas fired plants can run up to speed very quickly, hence delivering their power at that short notice.

Recently, they have been further adapted and now are quite efficient, with the addition of cogeneration, and even trigeneration.

With cogeneration, the exhaust from the jet turbine heats water to steam to drive a secondary smaller turbine, which in turn drives a smaller generator, and this then adds to the total overall power produced from the plant.

Trigeneration uses the cooling steam from that secondary turbine to run a heat pump which is used to provide conditioned air, cooling in summer and Warming in Winter, utilising moe steps in the process and dramatically increasing the efficiency of plants of this nature.

Small Trigeneration plants, up to around 4MW can be used to provide power for high rise buildings be they work places or residences. They are around the size of on to two rail/ship Containers, and can be fitted in the basement of the building, and provide all the power for the building, and any excess can also be fed to the grid as well.

Large Cogeneration plants can now provide large scale power, and while earlier plants were best suited to that Peaking power operation, they have got to the stage now where they can be used for 24/7/365 power, without shortening the life span of the plant, whereas in earlier years, running them on this time basis did shorten their life, quite considerably, and even shortening them like this they still last longer than the 25 year best case for wind, and solar power plants.

With these plants the emissions are in fact less than coal fired, and the average would be, on a Watt for Watt basis around one third of the emissions of coal fired power.

CO2 emissions can be easily calculated in fact, and that comes in at 122 Pounds (weight) per mcf of Methane. (mcf is 1,000 Cubic Feet of Gas)

That one third emissions is for a straight out turbine, so for Cogeneration and for Trigeneration, the emissions work out even less for the amount of power produced, and ‘work’ being done, (Heat Pump function of Trigen)

Now, the real advantage is at the front end.

From the turning of the first ‘sod’ at the site to actual power delivery, these natural gas fired plants are the quickest to come on line, and that can even be down as low as 18 Months.

That’s not from the ‘thought bubble’ stage, as all the early stuff has to be done, planning, impact statements, approvals, financing etc, and even then, these plants asre quicker at that stage as well.

So, while they still emit CO2, and are probably verboten according to The Greens, this is in fact a direction well worth pursuing, and with new large gas deposits being found, and opened up, the only thing holding it back is Green sabotage in the form of ill advised spin for their own agenda.

Tony.

PS. I’ve been ‘off air’ for 10 days with catastrophic computer failure, mainly the Hard Drive, and I’m still in the process of a complete program rebuild, after having to get a new ‘tower’.

Have you heard of an “inverted turbine”?
No, you would not as I shelved it about 10 years ago.
What it is is splits the stream of energy and harnesses it together as “many hands pushing a wheel”. This generates a great deal of torque which is needed for the amount of power to be produced.
Current turbines use the bulk energy design which wastes vast amounts of energy not touching the turbine blades.

PA is very dangerous when unpolymerised (i.e. don’t touch it when it is polymerising). Anyone with some experience of molecular biology (Jo will attest to this) will know of the warnings about its affects to neurological systems. Just google polyacrylamide and MSDS and read up.

Yes, and “salt” in its unchlorinated form is Sodium, which is very dangerous when unchlorinated. Anyone with some experience of molecular biology (Jo will attest to this) will know of the warnings about its affects to neurological systems. Just google Sodium and MSDS and read up.

/sarc/off

“Unpolymerised” Polyacrylamide, is, by definition, NOT Polyacrylamide. It is Acrylamide, which is an entirely different chemical formulation which has entirely different properties. Hell, it’s even derived from different sources.

How far off the planet do you “Climate Witnesses” have to get before you realise you have slipped over the edge?

err… great. Well since you are repeating MV’s earlier pithy reply, I’ll reply again this time with references.

Trace amounts of acrylamide in PA mean that it is important to handle PA with care. Of course some PA is rigorously manufactured and tested so that the risks are very low but if it is not a medical grade product, then it is recommended to handle it as though it is potentially toxic.

Yes, normally I would link the original article at The Australia, but that has now gone behiond a paywall, so we go to the SMH to read what should be an Australian newspaper story.

How’s that paywall working out for you, Rupert? Aged business types who completely fail to come to terms with shifting business models due to technology change amuse me. That goes for the record industry and Gerry Harvey too… but I digress.

This hasn’t been the experience so far. The price of gas in the US has dropped dramatically because of the large amounts being produced. Also, while it is a good thing to increase the efficency of energy use in housing, this is only a stop gap measure and new energy sources will need to be found after all of the efficiency gains have been taken up. It is also expensive to retrofit old housing and this cost must be compared with the cost of the extra energy used.

You can be certain that the eco loons will be working flat out on scare stories designed to prevent the exploitation of shale gas.

All those scares about ‘peak oil’, nuclear Armageddon or relying on foreign gas for our energy needs are shot out of the water by this discovery.

There’ll be a lull in the MSM’s reporting of the shale gas bonanza – until the usual suspects have got their scare stories fully up and running. Then it’ll be denounced as the devil’s work and that any attempt at exploitation will lead to the end of the world.

I’m afraid that an energy bonanza like this just doesn’t sit well with the watermelons who want to wreck our economy and regulate us back to the Bronze Age!

25 Oct: ABC: EPA appointment questioned by opposition
The State Opposition has questioned the appointment of a former public servant to a position on the board of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Elizabeth Carr is a former Department of State Development director of the Browse LNG project.
Labor’s environment spokeswoman Dr Sally Talbot says Ms Carr’s appointment to the EPA is confusing given her apparent lack of environmental credentials…http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-25/epa-appointment-questioned/3599976

Of COURSE the UK government’s in a lather about shale gas – because in their minds they’ve built this fantasy land covered in windmills providing ‘free’ electricity once in a while – and just hadn’t imagined there could possibly be another source of RELIABLE energy under our feet..
So – they take the usual advice (WWF; Greenpeace etc) and decide that its FAR too dangerous to exploit (good job these alarmists weren’t around when oil was discovered) BUT they are quite happy to pump CO2 underground at high pressure until… what, exactly..?
Actually, the first large-scale ‘carbon capture’ scheme has been scrapped – but would have worked, we are assured by our dear Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, had there been – and I quote – ‘unlimited resources’….

We’ll see what happens as we enter another bitterly cold winter. The fact that the Met. Office now uses solar data in its forecasts, having reportedly changed its head of modelling, suggests a sea change in some scientific advice being given to UK government. The meteorologists are delighting in the collapse of the power of the modellers who couldn’t predict better than a bloke with a slide rule.

We still have the non scientist Beddington as Chief Scientific Adviser [he's an economist] so the Marxists still control some information flow.

My assessment is that there is a real battle between the warmists and the pragmatists. Warmist Beddington seems to think his job is to throw up every single scare he can imagine to slash UK living standards to third world levels. Cameron doesn’t mix with real people so he is just as bad. Unchecked, they will cause 100s of thousands of cold related deaths each year rather than accepting that the likes of Hansen and Trenberth have constructed a new Lysenkoism mixed with phlogiston.

The real nasties in the wings are the Nazis at the very top of the Establishment who want millions of untermenschen to die whilst they and their mates get rich on wind and solar energy subsidies, the Mafia scam to end all Mafia scams.

It is hard for politicians to even contemplate that they may have made mistakes.
Any changes to a different energy source will be slow in coming as they spent their wads of cash on crappy technology that has to be constantly subsidized.

Somehow I imagine any purveyor of truth should not have to use excessive caps and exclamation marks… perhaps I am getting cynical in my old age, but in my experience the truth adds its own emphasis without any help from the author. “REAL FACTS” … sounds like something used to sell shampoo, you know like vitamins that feed your dead hair, or products with “light reflecting technology.”

One school of thought on emoticons says they are a dumbing down of communication for people who lack a sense of humour.
Another school of thought says that emoticons fill a gap in Internet communication between strangers where the other person’s background, intelligence, previously stated beliefs, and personality are all unknown and the medium itself prevents transmission of intonation and facial expression that might otherwise hint that a non literal sarcastic interpretation was intended.

I find some merit in both camps though tend to side with the pro-emoticon argument more often. A smiley would have made all the difference in this case because, literally, Lionell does not know a priori that you are not an idiot.

24 Oct: ABC: Julia Holman: NFF ‘crazy’ for opposing carbon tax, says academic
An expert on climate change policy says the National Farmers Federation is crazy for opposing the carbon tax.
Andrew McIntosh is the associate director of the Australian National University Centre for Climate Law and Policy.
He says that agriculture will gain more than any other industry under the carbon tax, and some farmers can make a lot of money…
“And if the National Farmers Federation and other farming groups were smart about this, they’d be working on ways to encourage farmers to take up the opportunities, rather than trying to create a stink about the imposition of these schemes.”
The National Farmers Federation says it won’t support the carbon tax because it will cost farmers money.
President Jock Laurie says that while the Carbon Farming Initiative will provide opportunities for farmers, the same can’t be said for the carbon tax…
Mr Laurie says the tax and the carbon farming scheme are often discussed together, but should be looked at as separate issues.
“They’re completely different pieces of legislation, and this is where everyone seems to be getting confused,” he said.
“I’m not sure whether it’s deliberate or if it’s because they don’t understand the pieces of legislation…http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201110/s3346403.htm?site=illawarra

i’m against the Carbon Farming Iniative as well as the tax. Laurie does make a most important point tho, re the carbon tax and ETS being two distinct issues. i am positive the level of confusion sown amongst the public by the pollies on all sides with the help of the MSM is deliberate.

25 Oct: WSJ: AP: First Solar CEO to step down, shares plummet .
The CEO of the nation’s largest solar company is out, First Solar announced Tuesday, sending its shares tumbling more than 25 percent.
Rob Gillette, who took over at the company two years ago, becomes the latest in a series of high-level departures at First Solar Inc., based in Tempe, Ariz…
A First Solar spokesman wouldn’t comment further about Gillette’s departure. Shares fell $14.68, or 25.33 percent, to $43.27 per share — the biggest one-day drop in company history, according to FactSet.
Avian Securities analyst Mark Bachman said investors fled as the company refused to explain the decision.
“We don’t know if he was fired, or if he left under his own accord,” Bachman said. “There’s just an air of uncertainty around this company now.”
In August and September, First Solar received three federal loan guarantees totaling $3 billion under the same program that paid for the $528 million loan to Solyndra…
In its latest financial report, First Solar said it sold more panels than during the same period last year, but its profit dropped 62 percent as its prices fell.
Gillette remained outwardly positive, telling investors that better times were ahead for the solar industry…http://online.wsj.com/article/APea8ef3d39b2844ba8be572b08526ad6d.html

just like Gillette, the carbon vultures in the business media will never warn you to get your money out before the collapse…

“Orson”,
Please elucidate on:-
1 The huge volume of water required by the Coal Seam Gas extraction
2 The Enormous volume of Salt produced by the Coal Seam Gas extraction
3 The cocktail of Carcinogenic chemicals used in the Coal Seam Gas extraction
4 The destruction of Enormous areas of prime agricultural land by the Coal Seam Gas extraction.
5 The destruction of water aquifers by the Coal Seam Gas extraction.
6 The Blatent disregard for Private Property Rights of landholders by Coal Seam Gas companies

You might like to also reveal for the class what financial incentives you are personally receiving from involvement in the Coal Seam Gas Industry.

As an oil and gas geologist it gives me great pleasure to respond to your adjective ridden list

1) Huge volume – please define. Many basins like the Bowen produce little water. Irrespective in basins like the Surat where larger quantities are produced, the water is required to be put to beneficial use. either roma or dalby has now been using RO produced water for 10 years…

2) Who’s producing the salt – what are the respective TDS levels for each basin ? In some cases the TDS levels are minimal. sometimes the TDS levels represent bicarb, but oh no we dont want to ruin the cooking and cleaning industries by producing too much baking soda do we. Be specific – who’s producing what? By the way on an annual basis the amount of (recovered) salt industry wide is about the same volume of material as moved in a single day by an open pit coal mine. Go figure.

3)Anything is carcinogenic in the right amounts. Try consuming 100% nitrogen and see how you feel. that doesnt stop you filling your car with (carcinogenic) petrol or using dozens of other household products. The key is ensuring that their use does not have a detrimental effect on the environment. Tell us where this has occurred and verified by an independent authority such as the EPA. By volume where fraccing occurs 99% is water and sand.

4)Where is the destruction of enormous areas of prime agricultural land ? Point us to a single location where cropping land has been largely subsumed by CSG. CSG companies deliberately steer clear of prime agricultural land because….. its prime agricultural land. The land used is often grazing country where the space occupied is generally no more than 2.5% of the land in question (pads roads the lot). That 2.5% pays 5x the previous carrying value and therefore increases the value of such country and gives the grazier greater economic benefit.

5)Destruction of water aquifers. Are there any other types of aquifers ? By the way what is your technical definition of an aquifer ? Again another amount of BS. In the Surat where most water by production occurs, that claim has occured because some farmers were tapping water inside the coal measures (the Walloons – and producing gas too). Where that happened there are now make good provisions. Asides from that, the fact is that these are not aquifers such as the Hutton. We know this from how ironic information gleaned by previous oil and gas drilling (wireline logs) which are significantly deeper and have a different water chemistry.

6)Any company that disrespects the rights of landowners deserves opprobrium. Any sensible operator will only deal with land owners that are willing to contract with them and do so on financially attractive terms. If they dont offer suitable terms, than landowners should lock the gates. CSG companies understand that co existence is not only possible but necessary. The right form of co existence can bring good benefits to rural communities – see Dalby, Roma and Chinchilla. And specifically to the point why should a landowner NOT be able to contract with a CSG operator if he/she/they want to. Many landowners face enough restrictions on what they already can/cannot do on their land without have misinformed people like you trying to place further restrictions on them.

21 Oct: Nature: Blog: Can psychology overcome a climate of resistance?
Posted on behalf of Emma Marris
In Miami today, at the annual meeting of the Society for Environmental Journalists, a panel of three social scientists tackled the question of how to get people to change behavior. Never mind whether they care or not. How can the culture be tweaked? How can policies be set to influence human behaviors to emit less greenhouse gas?
One – perhaps controversial – recommendation they all echoed was to avoid the phrase ‘climate change,’ which they say has become too politicized. Kenneth Broad, the director of the Leonard and Jane Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy at the University of Miami suggested ‘environmental change.’ Shahzeen Attari, who studies human behavior and energy use at Indiana University likes “climate disruption.”
Michel Handgraaf, a psychologist who works among economists at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, emphasized that rewards for behavior have to be immediate to really work. People are less likely to buy an energy efficient fridge if it costs more money now, even if it will save them twice as much in energy bills over the long run. So incentive programs should figure out how to deliver those savings right away…
Journalists and environmentalists in the audience raised the point that the kind of individual consumer behaviors the panel were focusing on were all well and good, but that bigger forces matter more in the end, from city planning to the decisions made by power companies to international agreements on carbon limits or taxes. Attari agreed that individual behavior can only go so far when it is “embedded in unsustainable structures.” But of course power company executives, politicians and car manufacturers are individuals too, people with the same kinds of imperfectly rational evolved brains. If we can “psych out” the man on the street and get him biking to work, we should be able to influence the major decisions that shape our global energy economy. Perhaps environmental organizations should start recruiting in psychology departments and in the intelligence community.
For more, see a new guide on “The Psychology of Climate Change Communication” by Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions.http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/10/psychological_engineering_and.html?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20111025

there’s just one comment below – and it is pure comedy:

Peter Malsin: When every news outlet in the Western world jumps on a non-story as puny as “Climategate,” blowing it up into what appears to be a world-class scandal, how can we talk about the media “providing information” without talking about the media jamming, pre-empting information?

this is most likely Malsin:

2011 Wellborn Ecology Conference
OUR WORKSHOP PRESENTERS
Peter Malsin is a climate-change education consultant and activist. A former elementary teacher, he has generated several initiates to accelerate student and educator literacy in climate change. He is currently working under the aegis of the Vermont Institute of Natural Science to create an institute for teacher professional development in climate change. An interdisciplinarian, Peter addresses socio-political, mediacentric and narrative aspects of climate change as well as scientific, ecological and environmentalhttp://www.nhcf.org/document.doc?id=665

26 Oct: Yass Tribune: Climate Change seminar
Yass was fortunate to host Professor Will Steffen at a seminar called ‘The Critical Decade – Climate Change’. Professor Steffen is a climate science expert and researcher and the executive director of the Climate Change Institute at the Australian National University, Canberra…
And there’s nothing like a slick powerpoint presentation to present a case, setting out explanations of what climate change actually is, an explanation of how the Earth’s climate has changed in the distant – and in the recent – past, whether or not human activities are causing climate change, together with a forecast of how climate might be expected to evolve in the future, and with dire predictions of the consequences of climate change if strategies are not put in place immediately to prevent them.
Professor Steffen acknowledged, in dealing with climate change, that there is actually a good deal of uncertainty in the science. However, he posited that after a balanced assessment of the available evidence and prior knowledge of ‘levels of confidence’, that credibility can very well be attached to the findings of climate change scientists…
There are a sizeable number of climate sceptics in Australia so it is hardly surprising when it is revealed by the Canberra science communicator, Dr Craig Cormick, in Australia roughly every second person believes in psychic powers such as ESP. One in three believes in UFOs and one in five believes in magic? Also, a 2005 survey published in the Medical Journal of Australia stated that half of all Australians are taking alternative medicines, with one in four not even telling their doctor they are taking them. Other surveys conducted in Australia indicate that about 80 per cent of the population hold at least one paranormal belief, which includes astrology – and the Tribune itself has just recently introduced a column of ‘Your stars with Alison Moroney’ – and one in 10 Americans also said that astrology was ‘very scientific’. In the UK belief in UFOs is about evenly divided into thirds between those who say UFOs have visited the earth, those who say they have not and those who were undecided.

It seems that the climate change sceptics are probably candidates for membership of the ‘flat Earth society’ and would have been howling for the death of Galileo for his alleged heresy in his suggestion that the Earth revolved around the sun and not, as the Catholic church of the time dogmatised, that the Earth was the centre of the solar system and the sun revolved around it!…

Another doubtful answer came from the question that, while Australia didn’t individually contribute very much as a nation to the overall world problem of climate changing emissions, it was OK for it to export vast quantities of coal, iron ore and uranium etc to the major world emissioners so that they could do it!
So while Australia doesn’t actually emit very much carbon on a world scale, it is hypocritical for it to take the high moral ground when it actually provides the means for the greatest emissions to take place elsewhere!http://www.yasstribune.com.au/blogs/the-way-i-see-it/climate-change-seminar/2337117.aspx

I know that this Comment has nothing really to do with the theme of this Post, but I want you to look at this and understand just what living Green is going to cost, not just personally, but as a Community as a whole.

I’ve just heard an article on one of the nightly TV news bulletins.

It deals with the ‘coming age’ of the all electric vehicle, and how this is the way of the future, well, maybe actually part of Labor’s ‘Clean Energy Future’.

This new all electric car, battery operated, driving an electric motor, has a range of 150KM, so if you use it as your ‘daily driver’, you may get two days out of it before the batteries need charging. If you have a relatively long commute and then add in some shopping on the way home, say, then it will run out of charge in a day.

That’s OK we are told, because the batteries can be charged overnight, while you sleep, and be fully charged the next morning, having an 8 hour charging cycle, and the ‘talking head’ telling the story said it only costs $4 per complete charge.

Sounds great eh!

The average electricity bill is around $350 per quarter, which, over the 90 day cycle, works out at around $4 per day, to completely power your house, everything.

So, if you shell out the big bucks to buy one of these, and use it on a daily basis, it effectively, and wait for this, doubles your residential electrical power bill.

There is a huge saving in emissions they say, not burning all that petrol etc.

Gee! That also sounds great too, eh!

So, plug the car into the residential power outlet to charge overnight, and, er, power plants, er, in the main, (say it quietly Tony) Coal Fired, have to supply more electricity for longer periods, or during peaking power, when natural gas fired Peaking Power plants are in operation, they now have to run longer to top up that extra power needed to charge them all, if as the man says, these things will sell ‘off the wall’. (Yeah! Right!) Hence, more CO2 emissions from those gas fired plants as well.

So, on top of costing more than double the price of an average petrol car, you also pay in the doubling of your household power bill, and, on top of that again, CO2 emissions increase.

Kermit did indeed have it right.

It really is wonderful being Green.

Double the household power bill is enough for me.

AS a sidelight, I suppose it will make riveting viewing for the Bathurst 1000. Let’s see, that’s 6 pit stops of 8 hours each, so the race now takes, er two and half days, day and night.

$4 per charge at 20c per kilowatt hour suggests a full charge at 100% efficiency would provide 20 kilowatt hours of driving power. 150 km at about 30 km/hour suggests an engine output of about 4 kilowatts. Is this enough to face a traffic stream comprising mainly cars of 100 kilowatts, or more or are the calculations here invalid?

I know airconditioning is only nice to have and not really necessary, but what do electric cars do for heating? How does this affect the calculation above?

Gnome,
some boring old electrical theory, but I’ll try and keep it so it can be understood by all.

The batteries do not drive the car, and I would suppose we all know that in a way.

You have, (in a basic way of explaining it) batteries, a generator and an electric motor.

Placed alongside each other, a similar sized generator and an electric motor look to be about the same, and the only discernible difference would be the weight as the motor would be heavier. While looking the same, they work on the opposite principle. Both have a rotor with electromagnets and both have a Stator.

The generator requires the (rotor) shaft to be driven. The rotating magnetic field induces an electric current in the stator hence producing electricity.

The electric motor has wire wound poles as the stator, and once electric current is passed through those stator windings, thus inducing a magnetic field, then the reaction of this stator magnetic field with the rotor magnetic field causes the (rotor) shaft to rotate. This then provides the car’s forward motion.

I hope I explained that satisfactorily.

So, the process works backwards from what I mentioned above, batteries, generator, electric motor.

In this case a large electric motor drives the car.

A medium sized generator, (much larger than the average car alternator) supplies the large amounts of power required to make the motor turn.

Now, if you have an electric motor hooked up to a generator, (and vice versa) then feasibly, one sustains the other, a form of perpetual motion.

Not so. (Keep in mind the no free lunch principle.)

Enter the batteries.

They supply the power for the start up and the excitation for the generator rotor.

The generator then bumps up the electrical power to the large level required for the motor to power the car motion at around the same level as for a petrol driven engine.

Coming off from the motor are all the accessories on a normal car, powered in much the same manner. There would also be a small trickle return to the batteries as well, but not enough to keep them fully charged. (no free lunch)

Hence the batteries discharge over time, eg, the range of the car, in this case around that 150Km range.

I mentioned above that the cost of these cars might be double that of your average family car, and in fact these wholly electric cars run in at around $200K.

Again, you can see that electrical theory, is quite complex, and not readily understood when just explained in such a simplified manner by a ‘talking head’ on the TV news as being a ‘battery powered car’.

I suspect the Greens think that an electric car works the same as a child’s toy – a couple of D-Cells directly driving a small motor, and, logically, assume that it’s simply upscaling the storage and motor to produce a “normal” electric car. As you show here, no, this is not how it works

Tony, That’s the worst explanation of electric cars I’ve ever heard. Besides it is plain flat out wrong.
The electric car does indeed have a battery which is charged when the car is parked by plugging it in to a charger powered by the mains although you could use a dedicated solar or wind generator.
The energy in the battery is used to drive an electric motor attached to the wheels. Modern designs use 3 phase AC electric motors. The DC from the battery is converted to 3 phase AC using a solid state inverter. This also makes speed control easy as the current to the motor is chopped thousands of times a second and the on to off ratio of the chopping determines the power going to the motor. For regenerative braking the 3 Phase AC motor is an alternator and the current produced is rectified and charges the battery. The AC motor may be of the permanent magnet type as is common but may also be of the shunt or series wound type without permanent magnets. Tesla I think, don’t use a permanent magnet motor.

This type of battery/motor system is now ubiquitous in the hobby world with model cars, boats and aircraft powered by lithium polymer batteries with small solid state speed controller/inverters and 3 phase AC motors. Sure beats glowplug or spark ignition motors and oily exhaust residue. It is all neat well understood engineering with lots of off the shelf parts. Now if only the batteries were better…….

My brother has a Hybrid Camry, and while he just drives the thing, I wanted to know the technical aspects more than anything.

I actually read his manual for the car, something I still bet he hasn’t done.

That car has a bank of batteries, a medium sized alternator, and a large electric motor as well as the small petrol engine, which assists with the drive mechanism when needed, and also drives the generator for the battery charging mechanism as well as for other electrical consumption in the car. The motor in that also acts as an alternator when reversed, eg, when not providing the drive for the car.

It’s comprehensively more complex than anything I have ever seen under the bonnet of any car.

He was a little miffed when the biggest thing I wanted to do was to read the manual, rather than actually drive it.

I was sort of waiting for the first person to come in and correct me, so thanks again.

I was talking to a friend of mine that works for ETSA (South Aust) and he was saying that if one or two people in an area have solar panels it drives the voltage up over 250V on the transformers during the day for everyone so they have to go out and wind down the taps on the transfomers otherwise it will blow light bulbs etc. What this means is that during the night when the sun dont shine the power drops below 240V so they wind the taps back up until the next day.

150 kms per charge ah that sure makes a trip from Sydney to Perth quite a trip.Why you might just get out of NSW in less than 2 weeks.
I did read somewhere that they did a test from London to Edinburgh between an electric car and a stage coach and the stage coach won.Cobb @ Co might make a comeback in our brand new Clean Energy Future.

I actually have no problem with electric cars, as long as no taxpayer money is being used to subsidise them.

Erm, oh wait, that’s exactly what’s happening.

The silly electric car afficianados defend the subsidies, not realising, that, like trade protection, it will eventually be their undoing. Like Australian cars protected by tariffs for many years, they nearly died once the tariffs were removed.

Makes of electric cars just have to try harder and harder until they can compete on level terms. Then the decision will be entirely up to the buyer.

There is something to be said for completely having your own means of transport, if that were to mean you could have a city-runabout charged from rooftop-solar. It is possible, not necessarily convenient for most, but quite possible.

Energy from CSG extraction uses less than one eighth of the water required to generate power from coal, and one five thousandth of the water required to create a similar amount of energy via biofuels, so beloved of you Greenies.

2 The Enormous volume of Salt produced by the Coal Seam Gas extraction.

Lots of industrial processes create salts and other products even harder to dispose of. Look up “Phosphate Hill QLD” on Google maps in satellite view. The white regular-shaped object with dark blotches to the north is the world’s biggest pile of highly acidic gypsum. It’s been there for fifteen years without you or anybody else complaining, it’s virtually indestructible and pretty-much unregulated.

Better yet, look up “Gove NT” the same way. The several hundreds of acres of reddish goo between the town and the refinery is highly caustic (and totally indestructible) “mud” left over after the extraction of Alumina from Bauxite. The retaining wall to the south-west facing Drimmie Head is now about fifty feet high, and sooner or later in a cyclone it’s going to breach and the whole lot is going to end up in pristine and historic Melville Bay, and destroy everything. It’s been accumulating now for forty years without you noticing.

But for you I suppose, out of sight, out of mind.

Truth is, by comparison the salt produced in CSG production is a minor nuisance, and there are already stringent controls in place for its disposal and safe methods to do so.

3 The cocktail of Carcinogenic chemicals used in the Coal Seam Gas extraction.

Again, this is a matter of regulation. Yes, it is possible to use certain chemicals which are less safe (and cheaper). One company was caught doing just this in QLD, and their operations were closed down.

4 The destruction of Enormous areas of prime agricultural land by the Coal Seam Gas extraction.

Here you might have a valid point. The companies would rather extract CSG where infrastructure already exists, with an available workforce with housing etc. This is simply greed as there are plenty of places where CSG is extractable where the land is bleak and not of much use for anything else.

Any government that would allow the destruction of prime agricultural land to accommodate a temporary increased profit (compared to farming) by a mining company should be prosecuted for crimes against the state. If people like you stuck to aspects of the issue like this, you’d probably have the full support of most readers here.

Having said that, as GEO points out, once established CSG extraction actually “uses” stuff-all land.

5 The destruction of water aquifers by the Coal Seam Gas extraction.

CSG is usually extracted from several thousand feet below aquifers, meaning that the only time they are in danger of contamination is when a well leaks. This again is a matter of location and regulation – see 4 above.

You might like to also reveal for the class what financial incentives you are personally receiving from involvement in the Coal Seam Gas Industry.

Zero involvement, and zero financial incentives.

Clearly you have no regard for your fellow Australians or Australia.

I started campaigning for “Australia and my fellow Australians” back in 1985. I am generally credited with having spearheaded the anti-ID Card movement in 1986. I was the first to expose what is now known worldwide as “Project Echelon” and the existence of a CIA-run private army in Australia to protect it. I have made and spent three modest fortunes fostering political movements aimed at protecting Australians’ rights. I have been hauled before the courts nine times and been to jail once so people like you could have the freedom to come here and have your say, even if I disagree with it.

Come back and lecture me on “commitment” when you have some personal runs on the board.

Below is a link to a segment on the American CBS “Sixty Minutes” program, which I think fairly reasonably sums up both sides of the CSG controversy. If people like you could stick to the facts, rather than spouting the Greenie “anti-fossil fuels” propaganda, you might find you have more allies than you think – even here.

Your point that its “one five thousandth of the water required to create a similar amount of energy via biofuels” is very interesting. I had no idea that the water requirements for biofuels were so staggering.

That makes me wander: Is there any data on the amount of water required in the total life cycle for a wind turbine or a solar panel to understand its water to energy equivalence ? when you think about the requirements for a wind turbine – concrete (water intensive in manufacture and preparation) and steel from basic forging and casting (water intensive) to then precision machining (water intensive), the H2O used must be quite significant.

When you consider the total energy budget required for the construction and installation of a wind turbine, spread across the lifetime of the turbine, and the average value of the electricity they produce across their lifetime, they are never economic.

A wind turbine of 1.8 MW needs approximately 50 acres (minimum) of free land around it. The concrete alone is nearly 2,500 cubic meters of concrete (and massive amounts of reinforcing steel)that often has to be batched on site with massive local environment destruction along with the kilometers of wiring associated with it. These things are probably the worse environmental hazard of the renewable energies. The LCA of these things is very poor due to the fact that the bases are uneconomical to recycle and will be left in situ.

These will be the underground pyramids for future generations to dig up – and ask “Why did they build these” – Answer – “Some sort of regilous sect maybe“

Sorry, I don’t have any actual figures on water consumption for wind turbines or solar panels, but in the case of turbines at least, it must be prodigious. Quite apart from the concrete, steel and machining involved and mentioned by you, the extraction of “rare earths” (as used in the magnets of wind turbines) is a highly water-intensive process (not to mention highly polluting).

It was on the basis of water consumption (and subsequent pollution) that the Greenies managed to close down rare earth mining in WA a couple of decades ago.

It is a fallacy that China have a monopoly on these minerals. What they have is a monopoly on the PRODUCTION of these minerals, largely because of the actions of the Greenies in past times. However, in fairness I must add the Greenies’ concerns were not without foundation – some (most?) of the companies involved in their extraction here in OZ had woeful environmental standards.

1 The huge amount of rare earth minerals used in the manufacture of turbines.
2 The huge pollution problems currently in China & India from manufacture of solar & turbines
3 The cocktail of Carcinogenic chemicals used in the manufacture of turbines
4 The destruction of enormous areas of all land by the Solar & Turbine.
5 The LCA’s of solar are toxic with virtual total replacement
6 The blatent disregard for Private Property Rights of landholders by Clean Energy.

while i have no problem with helping poorer countries, i have no doubt all the promises about $100bn a year from the CAGW crowd is just talk. however, it’s amazing that we now have this suggestion of even more taxes on the public and/or companies (via reduced subsidies, which would increase costs to consumers)…where does it end?

27 Oct: Age: Tom Arup: Climate aid would cost nation $2bn
The researchers from the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy (ANU) have calculated Australia’s contribution to the target – agreed at the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009 – based on its current share of global emissions and economic capacity…

The contribution could be met through measures such as direct donations via the aid budget, levies on international transport fuels, a tax on financial transactions, reducing subsidies to fossil fuels and private companies purchasing credits on the international carbon market, the paper proposes.
Australia could also commit $450 million of revenue by 2020 from the carbon price – due to start mid-next year – to meet Australia’s financing share at $2.4 billion a year, they say.
In August, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet ruled out using revenue from the carbon price to meet international commitments…http://www.theage.com.au/national/climate-aid-would-cost-nation-2bn-20111026-1mk6n.html

The reluctance to accept good news taht will actually have a strong material impact on people’s lives is a powerful indictment of the green ethos.
In the US, the big enviro’s are desperately seeking ways to derail shale gas development.
No lie or deception is off limits.
Truth is ignored in their desperate misanthropic desire.
I can only imagine how much worse this must be in the UK where big enviro is seeking a return to a feudal society with, of course, the big enviro leadership as the lords and ladies of the realm.

klingon,
Clever little decepticon you are.
Your attempt to associate the clean gas with ‘dirty’ coal is a clever try.
Your ignorance of frakking and natural gas are only matched by your bad faith.
The final question, implying a cynical financial motive of someone who is disagreeing with your uninformed position, is not unexpected from an AGW true believer, so you lose points for a derivative tactic.

What you have to realise is that as with your country we in the UK are being ever more tightly shackled by politicians who want more and more control (power). The present Conservatives are not really Conservative but lesser socialists. They do not understand freedom having not been through a war on home territory. We oldies have seen how socialism has destroyed communities and impoverished nations. Until we get truth and morality into politics shale gas for example will be held back.

Not even a closet Roman Catholic but this cultural Protestant finds George Pell’s piece in the Australian a very powerful defense of rationality and the rejection of the authority argument otherwise known as consensus science, particularly when the “consensus” evidence at best is ambivalent and on balance ignores much of the contrary evidence.

I think the war might be hotting up- several positive articles in the Australian opinion pages today- perhaps they are responding to their audience in an attempt to shore up the paywall- while several looney fringe articles in ABC’s drum this week.

The Drum is worth a look though because of the depth of ignorance by the commenters there. Some still believe the planet is still warming faster than ever before and others (?) that the world will dry to a desiccated wasteland when the oceans boil away. The ignorance must be cringeworthy even to decent minded warmists.

(Flannery cops a serve in Cut and Paste, and it needed saying. I have worked out though, that his waterfront home is a clever application of his precautionary principle. Even if he is wrong about global warming he is covered by a good real estate investment.

UPI FILE
One of the biggest lies that Al Gore, Barack Obama and other Greens have told the nation is that if we simply use more hybrid cars, wind turbines, solar panels and other such inventions, we will no longer have to go begging sheiks and mullahs for our energy source.Editor’s note: This is part 2 in a two-part series on the dangers of going green.

American liberals are determined to sell out America — even it means a deal with the devil: China, a nation whose ambitions include world domination within the next 20 years.

The only thing standing in Beijing’s way is the United States, a quickly fading superpower that owes more than $1.4 trillion in Treasury debt.

America’s total servitude may soon stretch beyond money. If the Greens get their way, America will need China just to power itself up each day. That is because China has a near monopoly of rare earth elements, the essential ingredients that power renewable energy — something President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress insist on.

Last week, OilPrice.com told the dirty truth about clean energy: “It’s official — China’s de facto monopoly on current rare earths production is a threat to the global economy.”

Rare earth elements were the substance discussed at length during the Sept. 21 meetings by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.

New American Security analyst Christine Parthemore laid out what was said at the national security meeting: “Reliable access to critical minerals is a matter of both economic and geostrategic importance to the United States. … Today, no minerals are more troubling to U.S. security and foreign policy than rare earth elements. … Supplies are concentrated mostly in the hands of one supplier [China] with its own rising demand, and the United States today has no good options for recycling rare earth minerals or substituting more easily obtained minerals.”

What are rare earth elements? Noted energy analyst and writer Robert Bryce points out that lanthanides power most green technologies. Within them is a subset that is the cornerstone to clean energy: neodymium and praseodymium.

According to Bryce, these two materials, along with the other elements found in the lanthanides’ row of the periodic table, are essential commodities in nearly all of the technologies that are seen as solutions to our energy challenges, from wind turbines and hybrid cars to solar panels, computers and batteries.

Why are they so important? Lanthanides, which are also called “rare earths,” have special features at the quantum mechanics level. The configuration of their electrons allows them to have unique magnetic interactions with other elements. In other words, they have the elements to power the green industry.

There’s just one catch: The characteristics make lanthanides a key choke point in the development of the green economy.

Made In China
This has been one of the biggest lies that Al Gore, Barack Obama and other Greens have told the nation. According to these liars, if we simply use more hybrid cars, wind turbines, solar panels and other such inventions, we will no longer have to go begging sheiks and mullahs for Middle East oil.

Rather, we will have to beg somebody else: America’s rival for superpower status. You see, China controls almost all of the world’s lithium, the essential element in all high-capacity batteries.

Bryce writes: “In its headlong rush to go ‘green,’ the United States may simply be trading reliance on one type of import for reliance on another. Instead of requiring oil supplied by dozens of producers located in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere, it will need rare earth commodities produced by the Chinese as well as lithium mined by a handful of foreign countries.”

It was reported just last month that China now produces nearly 95 percent of the world’s rare earth materials. In today’s “Go Green” society, this gives the Chinese a future monopoly over America’s future energy dependence that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries only could have dreamed about.

People like Gore are either willfully ignorant of this truth about China’s monopoly over Green components or they gleefully ignore it, so they can collect their own green.

In 2007, Gore won his Nobel Peace Prize and declared that the United States should commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years. In a November 2008 opinion piece in The New York Times, Gore said the nation must replace “dangerous and expensive carbon-based fuels with 21st-century technologies that use fuel that is free forever: the sun, the wind and the natural heat of the earth.”

Earlier that year, Gore and the Alliance for Climate Protection launched a $300 million media campaign designed to stop global climate change. Their goals were backed by a number of Web sites, including Wecansolveit.org, Climateprotect.org and RepowerAmerica.org.

In less than a year, more than 2 million people had joined and had agreed to the statement, “I want to Repower America with 100 percent clean electricity within 10 years.”

Gore’s grassroots partners include the National Audubon Society, the Evangelical Environmental Network and many other groups. All Gore’s partners seem either very stupid or shortsighted.

It is true that most Americans have no idea why rare earth elements are important or why the Chinese monopoly on them is so dangerous.

The American Dream reported last month that China is enforcing strict new quotas on the export of all these essential metals. Why is that a problem? According to one Web site: “(It is because) these metals are essential in an increasing number of high technology products.”

We are just into our second decade of the 21st century, and China owns the minerals that make critical products, including:

■Hybrid car batteries,
■Supercomputers.
■Flat-screen televisions.
■Cellphones.
■iPods.
■Radar systems.
■Missile-guidance systems.
■Satellites.
■Aircraft electronics.
■Smart bombs.
We may not be able to alter the world’s geology. We may have to make deals with Beijing to import these goods that are essential to America’s future. But we don’t have to turn our back on the proven power of petroleum only to further enable our Communist competitors in China.

On the eve of 2012, America can count on two things:

1.Petroleum remains the best source of energy in the world.
2.Washington must not be allowed to mortgage America’s future on unproven clean energy, the key components of which belong to China.
The only other alternative is Green energy, a future in which America’s biggest enemy — communist China — dictates our future and our eventual servitude.

Joseph Stalin said: “When we hang the capitalists, they will sell us the rope.” It is an ideology that persists in China today.

In June of 2010, I came across an obscure article, and after some investigation, I made a Post at the site I contribute at.

It concerns Lithium, and while seemingly obscure, it does make the ears of anyone with any electrical background prick up.

You see, Lithium is the main Rare Earth used in new battery technology.

It seems that the largest deposits of Lithium have been found in, and wait for this, of all places, Afghanistan.

It sort of puts a whole new face onto the way of looking at U.S. involvement in that godforsaken backwater.

As most of you are aware, a lot of mineral exploration is taking place in Outer Space, not looking for the stuff a la ‘Alien’, but the use of satellites for geologic exploration.

The possibility of the existence of these deposits surfaced when the Russians were in Afghanistan, something jealously guarded until they were discovered when the US went in there, and detailed exploration ensued.

What initially showed up has led to ‘on the ground’ exploration which has verified the deposits.

It, er, makes you think about things in a different light now.

Rather than explain it all here, I’ll (again shamelessly, sorry) direct you to the Post at my own site and you can read about it there.

All the current new technology relies on miniaturisation, effectively meaning smaller lighter batteries, and Lithium is indeed the way of the future for batteries.

This battery technology is used in all manner of new tech electronic devices, so the future is just beginning.

Until you’ve actually used an item with Lithium Batteries, you don’t realise what that future is.

I have a Bosch battery drill with Lithium Batteries. Unlike similar drills, it is lighter by around 20 to 30%, because of the smaller battery. The drill goes at its maximum operation until the battery ‘dies’, unlike others which just progressively get slower and slower. It provides a higher torque throughout the life of the charge as well, and holds its charge for longer. Charging time is also less, in this case, around half of the older style batteries. Having a second battery as well means that when the first one stops, you change it, charge the removed battery, and keep working with the new one.

This is only for a hand held appliance I know, but where the technology will indeed excel is in the form of batteries for cars, eg Hybrids and full electric cars. The Lithium batteries will ensure weight is kept down charge is held for longer, and the charge time is lessened, something that has been holding back car technology in this field.

The main problem is the high cost of these batteries, due in the main to the rarity of known Lithium deposits.

If these new fields in Afghanistan are indeed as big as thought, then this ‘may’ lead to some costs coming down in this area.

Sorry Tony but as a sceptical geologist I have to ask were are the scientific reports on this? Nothing in any of the links, just references to journalists and defence people with broad mention of unnamed geologists. There are numerous different sources for Lithium (geologically)and Afganistan may well have resources but there are already many known and more readily accessible resources in Sth America, China and even Australia.Might have to do some research myself.

An 800MW power station has an output of 80% but one 1.8 MW wind turbine at 30% average output so we need nearly 1480 turbines at an average of 2,000 cubic meters of concrete (sand, gravel, cement, water & lime) for each platform to hold this bird/everything killer in place.

If Australia needs 250,000 MW then we need 462,500 wind turbines (but still need coal or gas when the wind doesn’t blow) – this then means we need 925 million cubic meters of concrete just to hold these things up + 23.125 million acres (at 50 acres per turbine) (or nearly 100 thousand square kilometers).

Don’t you just love GREEN power!

Environmentally friendly – YUP! – lets just make concrete for the next 20 years – OOPS thats a CO2 polluting industry – so up goes the cost (already paying upwards of $500 per CM of concrete in these sites) – and no recycling of the material after the 10 to 15 year use by date.

Sorry ! Can’t spend all day reading all the foregoing bloggs but don’t the Greens see that a readily available cheap reliable source of energy can finance the pure renewables and CO2 capture that will satisfy their dreams.
Greens won’t talk about population control when over-population is one of the main causes of pollution of the earth and atmosphere.
I asked Greenpeace once years ago why they were not promoting population control. They said it wasn’t their objective but they still fiddle about trying to influence the sources of energy (anti nuclear)and think that saving energy and home insulation will make a difference to climate change. What a dream !

How would you propose going about population control? Perhaps some type of final solutition? If you did enough research you would find that the rate of population increase is declining quite rapidly. There is a close correlation between economic growth and the decline in population growth. The best way to control the population is to make everybody as well off as even people on welfare in Australia are. The best way for the third world to achieve this growth is by the exploitation of their natural resources and the provision of a cheap and reliable energy supply. The least expensive way to get this energy supply is still coal and this dynamic is unlikely to change with any of the currently known forms of energy production. If I was in government is any of the countries in Africa, for example, the first thing that I would do would be to run all of the environmental NGOs out of the country and to ban them as terrorist organisations. In actual fact, I would dearly love to be able to do that here in Australia. The lack of backbonbe displayed by our politicions when dealing with the lies and misinformation spread about by these groups is pitiful to watch. They should be force to register with asic as a corporation and come under the same rules for supplying misleading information as companies do. They shoils alsom have to declare income recieved from donations and to pay taxes.

The real nasties are the elite who control organisations like WWF which reportedly has with other groups options on $60 billion carbon offsets, manipulating the IPCC to justify this economic finesse.

These people are neo-colonialists responsible for deaths in Uganda [as 20,000 people were moved off land to be used to grow a foreign plant, eucalyptus, with the economics being skewed by the carbon taxes].

So, the CAGW scam is the tactic to further the growth of fascism under the guise of environmentalism. Gillard and Cameron are the front for these people. The eugenics is the most chilling part.

Dear CameronH
You ask:
‘How would you propose going about population control? Perhaps some type of final solutition? If you did enough research you would find that the rate of population increase is declining quite rapidly. There is a close correlation between economic growth and the decline in population growth. The best way to control the population is to make everybody as well off as even people on welfare in Australia are.’

‘Final solution’ is always mentioned by people who don’t like the idea of population control which can be encouraged rather than patting on the back the fathers of large families.
All that is needed is to make large families an ‘unpopular’ thing.
Australia unlike the UK has no problem with over population and it is in the UK that we must control the population size and if we had the same attitude to immigration as the Australians we would probably not have such a big problem.
Of course, our governments are responsible for the over population of the UK by forcing membership of the EU on our people which does not allow us to stop immigration from the EU countries.
If it were possible to make everone as wealthy ‘as even people on welfare in Australia are’, don’t you think it would have been done already?
It is because there are too many dependants on donations from the better off that this ‘dream’ can not be achieved.
You have obviously noted that it is the countries with the smaller populations relative to their natural resources that have the better standards of living and it is they who have least difficulty in controlling the size of their populations.
The best way to help the African countries economically would be for the rest of the world to allow the import of food from these countries free of import duty and allow the people to operate companies to do that.
You may have gathered that not all of us in the European Union agree with it’s policies or even with it’s existence.

Bill,
After watching the series of “Britian From Above” and saw the large areas of vacant and unused land I would not consider Britian to have a population problem either. The main issue with overcrowding is to do with the environmental and city planner do gooders and world improvers who prevent the opening up of new areas for human development. This article explains it pretty well.This is mainly associated with the UN Agenda 21 on sustainable development which is all about stacking humans up in high density high rise accomodation along publc transport corridors. It is funny that one group of world improvers is caging up humans in high densities while another group is getting regulations into place to free farm animals so the that can roam around where they please. The attack by environmental groups, such as the soil society in the UK, have also limited the agriculurtal industries from maximum production. All of these issues have nothing to do with over population.

The other point that you make is about doing a bit of social engineering, for our own good of course, to convince people to have less children. Fathers you mention in particular so you obviously have bought into the all men are evil and everything is their fault doctrine. Social engineering is just one arm of the central planning doctrine of socialism. History and experience should have taught most people by now that socialism and central planning allways lead to totalitarianism. The issue of migration, that you memtion, into the UK is one point in case. The abiltiy of the UK citizen to critise the immigration policy and the uncivilised and violent actions of the immigrant communities have been stifled by all sorts of PC villification laws. Any political party that attempts to set up policicies on these issues ends up with bans on them and is torn apart by the socialist controlled media. After seeing all of this, where do you think the attampts at social engineering population control will end up. People who fail to comply will end up either in gaol or reeducation camps.

This misinformation about environmental destruction and over population and we are all going to starve BS is prevelant everywhere. In Queensland here in Australia, as an example, we have vegetation management laws that prevent farmers from clearing even the regrowth on previously cleared land in order to save us all from these greedy farmers destroying all of the country side. This has driven hundreds of farmers off their land and resulted in large numbers of suicides. All of this while Queensland is still under greater than 80% remnant vegitation. These are areas which have been untouched since British settlement.

With respect to economic development in places like Africa. Even inspite of the attempts by the environmental dogooders and world improvers, there has been a continual improvement in the economic wellbeing of Africans in general over the last 50 years. A book you should read in “Dead Aid” by Dambisa Moyo to see that the main problem with ecominc development in Africa is interference by western dogooders and world improvers. I would also advise you to read “The Skeptical Environmentalist” by Bjorn Lomborg to see the fallicies in the Malthusian world view on population control. The USA, with a population of greater than 300 million has a total built environment, including all cities, towns roads ect, of less than 5% of its land mass. If I remember correctly the total land use, including all agriculture, is still around the 30%.

So, back to social engineering. I can tell you that in Australia there is a rapidly growing number of people who are feed up to the back teeth with all of the wowsers, dogooders, and world improvers lobbying all levels of government to bring is legislation and regulations, for our own good of course, to restrict our liberties and freedoms. It will end and hopefully soon. You have a bigger problem as you government has handed over the soveignty of your nation to the EU. Maybe you need a revolution to get it back.

Dear CameronH
Thanks for the information much of which I do agree with you about.
In the UK we have tried encouragng people to live in areas where there is over-population relative to jobs available,ln towns, so because there seems to be lots of open countryside in the UK doesn’t mean that it is useable for people to live and work. On the contrary, if we had to feed our population from our own available farmable land we wouldn’t be able to feed half of the current population. So as our population increases the ratio of farmable land to built on land reduces.
My belief is that no country or area should have a population greater than that which can be fed at the minimum level from its available food producing resources. Support for larger population than that can only be temporary if world population increases until the import of food to the UK becomes too expensive to be sustained at the present level. We have had the nasty experience of food shortages during WW2 when we had to turn the plough to every available piece of land to provide even the mimimum food required.
The present system of trade in food is like a house of cards, if it goes wrong then there is great difficulty in avoiding food shortages once the population is too large to be sustained by a country’s farmland. And it can and probably will go wrong, not a question of ‘if’ but when.
The EU has seen this posibility and has a common agricultural policy (the dreaded CAP)based mainly on the capacity of France to produce food.
I agree with you that India’s attempt to control population although well meaning, was too drastic. As I said before, all that is needed is for people to realise the problem and to discourage large families. We in the UK just about managed to achieve this happy state of affairs with the existing population as did Italy when the EU demanded that we allow in people from EU countries in a completely uncontrolled way and with our stupid short sighted governments encouraging people to have more kids to support the old age pensioners massive increases in population have
happened. The governments don’t seem to realise that all they are doing is pushing the problem further into the future when this population explosion becomes the next lot of OAPs.
Strangely enough, recently there has been more awareness of the population problem in the UK but of course we must not talk about it in too strong terms in case we upset the single parent unmarried mothers and the army of left wing do-gooders who seem to think that everyone has the right to a house and an average income before they have put anything into the pot themselves.
The anti-population control lobby have to come up with their solutions to the over-population problem, if we can convince them that it is a problem.
Or shall we just wait and see what happens if we do nothing !
One thing is certain, if the humans don’t control themselves then mother nature will, but her methods are even more drastic than those of India or China.

“The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature’s proper steward and society’s only hope.”
- David Brower,
founder of Friends of the Earth

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“If we don’t overthrow capitalism, we don’t have a chance of saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have
an ecologically sound society under socialism. I don’t think it is possible under capitalism”
- Judi Bari,
principal organiser of Earth First!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsiblity to bring that about?”
- Maurice Strong,
founder of the UN Environment Programme

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our
economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”
- Paul Ehrlich,
Professor of Population Studies

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.”
- Michael Oppenheimer,
Environmental Defense Fund

“We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of acres of presently settled land.”
- David Foreman,
co-founder of Earth First!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy,
because of what we might do with it.”
- Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
- Jeremy Rifkin,
Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
- Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Our insatiable drive to rummage deep beneath the surface of the earth is a willful expansion of our dysfunctional civilization into Nature.”
- Al Gore,
Earth in the Balance